The present invention relates to an energy producing plant in which the source of energy is a nuclear reaction of the fusion or fission/fusion types, and more particularly, to a power plant in which the nuclear reaction is of an explosive nature and in which nuclear devices are exploded repeatedly during the natural lifetime of the power plant.
For almost half of a century, energy has been produced by and extracted from nuclear fission reactions in a slow controlled process in various types of nuclear reactors. More recently, attempts have been made to control and extract energy from nuclear fusion reactions on a very small experimental scale. In this type of reactions, steady state operation is not contemplated and only a pulsed type of operation seems feasible. Other attempts have been made to use fission or fission/fusion nuclear devices on much larger scales to generate energy that could be harnessed for continuous usage. A device is exploded underground in a rock formation (old salt mine for example). Large amounts of rocks are vaporized, melted, broken down and heated. All these debris become very hot, but also very radioactive. Water under pressure is injected in the cavity thus formed. Heat is transferred from the hot rocks to the water. Superhated steam at high pressure is generated. This steam can then be used as a source of external energy. It is easy to understand why such a process can be used only once for each site. This approach does not offer a viable solution, it is inherently impractical.
The practical and economical use of pulsed fusion systems appears to be between 25 to 50 years in the future, depending upon the expert consulted. The use of fusion nuclear reactions, however, is very appealing: the fuel source is practically inhexaustible, the fuel is inexpensive, the fusion reaction produces less objectionable radioactive by-products than fission per unit of yield. Therefore, it seems desirable to take advantage of fusion nuclear reactions, if they can be safely and reliably combined with state-of-the-art engineering techniques which could allow the elimination of the major problem of plasma containment, which is the stumbling block of all fusion concepts now under study. Preferably, this is accomplished by isolating the nuclear explosion side effects from the mechanical hardware that contains the explosion debris and the working fluid used in the energy transfer process. The repeated use of the hardware and of the installation then becomes possible.